The FDA recently announced new serving sizes for nutrition labels, based on the changing ways that people eat. We look at a few of the notable updates—and a few things that've stayed the same.

Earlier this year the Food and Drug Administration updated its requirement for the nutrition facts label, that ubiquitous box on the back of most packaged foods. Some of the changes were cosmetic, though meaningful—calories, for instance, will be larger than the other information. (Most manufacturers have two years to make the changes.)

But the FDA also rethought some serving sizes—or, as the agency calls them, "reference amounts customarily consumed per eating occasion"—RACCs for short.

RACCs are the standard by which food manufacturers calculate serving size. They're meant to reflect the way that people actually eat, rather than the way that people are supposed to eat. The last time the RACCs were updated was in 1993, when people ate differently, and so the RACCs were due for some revision.

We decided to take a look at a couple of the more notable changes—as well as some serving-size quirks that continue to live on.

Getting real about ice cream

Perhaps you've looked at the nutritional label on a pint of ice cream, took note of the half-cup serving size, and thought, "Who in the world eats only a half a cup of ice cream at a time?" The FDA has totally had that same thought! That's why the new RACCs revise a serving of ice cream upward, to two-thirds of a cup. (Will a change like this have the perverse effect of inspiring people to eat more ice cream? As the Washington Post noted, concerns have been raised over people taking the new serving sizes as recommendations.)

Getting serious about sugar

The serving size of sugar has doubled, from four grams to eight grams, and new nutrition labels, too, will include a line specifying the amount of added sugars in a product. (In general, the FDA is getting serious about sugar. Another new requirement is that products that are "between one and two servings," like 20-ounce bottles of soda, will be labeled as one serving, since that's how most people consume them.)

Im-pasta-ble

The RACC of dry pasta remains 55 grams, which translates to the two-ounce figure you usually see on your box of Barilla; in theory this means that a pound of pasta will feed eight people. LOL.

The bagels got bigger

Meanwhile, the updated RACCs reveal that we're eating bigger bagels. Their serving size doubled, from 55 grams to 110 grams. (For reference, Thomas' bagels are 95 grams, and Bruegger's bagels are about 120 grams.) Bagels, moreover, have been split off from biscuits and croissants, with whom they used to share the same category; the RACC for biscuits and croissants remains 55 grams.

An excuse for tinned fish!

The serving size for canned fish, shellfish, or game meat increased from 55 grams to 85 grams. This is the sort of news that can only be celebrated with a tinned-fish party.